Biden has no plans to drop out of race, White House insists

President Joe Biden has no plans to resign, the White House said Wednesday, as it furiously scrambled to conduct damage control amid growing concerns among Democrats about the 2024 election and Biden’s ability to run his campaign after his faltering debate performance.

Faced with an onslaught of questions for the second day in a row, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre was asked point-blank during Wednesday’s briefing whether Biden was considering that option.

“Absolutely not,” Jean-Pierre replied. “And you heard it, I believe, directly from the campaign.”

Jean-Pierre was also asked about recent reports from the New York Times and others that Biden is evaluating whether to stay in the race.

Sources told ABC News on Wednesday that Biden privately acknowledged that the next few days are crucial in determining whether he can stay in the running for a second term.

“That is absolutely false,” she said. “We asked the president… the president said that was the case. No, that is absolutely false. He said that.”

The White House and his campaign are pushing to try to calm concerns about last Thursday’s clash, even as some allies question why Biden did not act more quickly and forcefully to reassure the public immediately after last Thursday.

Biden will meet with Democratic lawmakers and the governor at the White House later Wednesday evening, nearly a week after his confrontation with Donald Trump on stage in Atlanta.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who is attending the White House meeting with Democrats on Wednesday and is considered a possible replacement if Biden were to withdraw, told CNN the president “needs to communicate more” if he plans to rectify his poor debate performance.

The White House announced a series of new events and interviews Tuesday and Wednesday that it says will allow Biden to deliver his message directly to the American people.

Jean-Pierre has repeatedly acknowledged that Biden had a “bad night,” but that their focus now is on turning the page with campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, local radio interviews and a television interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday and taken after the debate found Trump with a growing lead over Biden, 49 percent to 41 percent among registered voters.

The poll also asked voters whether Biden or Trump should remain their party’s nominee. When asked what they thought of Biden, 31% of registered voters said he should remain the designated candidate, while 60% said there should be a new nominee — results that weren’t much different from those just before the debate.

As for Trump, 42% of voters said he should be the GOP nominee, while 51% said it should be someone else.

The day after the debate, a more fiery Biden spoke at a rally in North Carolina and held campaign fundraisers in New York and New Jersey.

He then spent the rest of the weekend in Delaware, behind closed doors, with his family and advisers. Since returning to Washington on Monday, Biden has delivered brief remarks on the Supreme Court’s immunity decision and the extreme heat, but he has often spoken to a teleprompter and not taken any questions from reporters.

Meanwhile, pressure on Biden has grown within the Democratic Party, escalating dramatically Tuesday when Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first member of Congress to call on the president to withdraw from the race.

Over the past 24 hours, in damage control mode, Biden has spoken with Democratic House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn and Sen. Chris Coons, ABC News has learned.

A senior Biden adviser told ABC News senior White House correspondent Selina Wang that the president’s message to these congressional leaders is that he still has a path to victory, that the race hasn’t changed much and that his campaign still has the money and the organization.

In addition to Biden’s outreach, chief of staff Jeff Zients held a conference call with the entire staff on Wednesday about “the importance of all of us continuing to do the work and execute the mission together as a team,” according to a White House official.

Sources on the call described the interview to ABC News as a “simple pep talk” with a message that the focus should be on “executing the president’s vision and continuing to serve the country.”

According to the sources, Zients said there would be plenty of chatter in the coming days, but advised staff to “turn a deaf ear” and focus on supporting each other and the important work they need to do. They said Zients was the only person who spoke and did not take any questions.

The Biden campaign is also seeking to ease internal party concerns about the president’s standing in the race following his debate performance.

A campaign memo sent to congressional allies and obtained by ABC News cites internal campaign polling before and after Biden’s debate with Trump showing a close race between the two candidates, within the margin of error.

“This is consistent with the vast majority of public polling since the debate: the president has maintained his support among his 2020 voters and voters’ opinions have not changed,” the campaign wrote.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also convened a campaign meeting with all staff on Wednesday to give pep talks, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussion.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris took part in a conference call with all campaign staff to try to reassure their team that they are putting their heads down and moving forward, conceding that the last few days have been “tough,” multiple sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.

Biden was “unequivocal” in saying he was remaining in the race, sources said.

“I’m in this race all the way and we’re going to win because when Democrats come together, we always win. Just like we beat Donald Trump in 2020, we’re going to beat him again in 2024,” Biden said on the call, according to people familiar with the discussion.

According to the sources, Harris told her campaign advisers: “We will not back down. We will follow the lead of our president. We will fight and we will win.”

Biden concluded his speech by discussing the stakes of the election.

“There’s no one I’d rather be in this fight with than all of you. So let’s come together. Let’s go. You, me, the vice president. Together,” Biden told his team, the sources said.

All this before Biden meets with lawmakers at the White House. Among those who will be in attendance are Pritzker, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

ABC News’ Oren Oppenheim, Rachel Scott, Benjamin Siegel, Katherine Faulders, Molly Nagle, Allison Pecorin and Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.